MMT Quick Review of ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’

Hey MMT Family, what’s new?  Anyone checking out any films this weekend?  Here is my absolute favorite pick of this week – Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is, hands down, the winner! Okay, so you know I hate giving spoilers and boy does “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” make it hard to not do!  I thought it was amazingly well done, the story, the direction and I saw it in 3D so the CGI and effects were awesome!  Let me just break down a few things I really dug about the storyline here:

• A decent amount of time is spent defining and developing the ape community. This plays out really well with helping the audience to relate to the characters, and really helped me to anticipate where the third film in this reboot will take us. I also liked how the loyalty/trust themes played out in the ape community, and how Caesar’s character in particular struggled because of his history with humans.
• I won’t completely spoil, but there is a scene where Caesar has a beautiful moment in his old home!  Okay I’ll leave it there, but it was one of my favorite moments in the movie (the entire press aisle where I was seated reacted like the movie geeks that we are!).
• The reasons the apes and humans were separated without knowledge of each other, and subsequently reunited, are completely plausible (as far as sci-fi plausibility plays out!!! LOL).

Another thing I love about this film is Gary Oldman!  He always plays those characters that you either love (i.e. Commissioner Gordon in the Dark Knight trilogy) or love to hate (i.e. Carnegie in Book of Eli), and it’s certainly the latter in this movie with the Dreyfus character.  I mean, I wanted to empathize with him at one point, but he ultimately wants to kill the apes and that’s just a no-no!

Now there is violence in this film and with a PG-13 rating it is truly suitable for teens and over; so proceed with caution if you’re taking little ones. There is also a 130 minute running time but you will be so engrossed in the movie, especially if you watch in 3D, that it’s not noticeable.

Okay, that’s it for me family.  You can watch the below movie trailer and get additional info at the official movie website here. Please stop by and share a thought a two after you see the film – I’d love to hear it!

Until next thought family, Thomasena